WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. (AP) — A judge has upheld a jury verdict which found Mocksville’s town manager liable for wrongfully firing three police officers in 2011 after they made telephone calls to state officials to report allegations of corruption.

The Winston-Salem Journal reports (http://bit.ly/2aOOOom) the ruling from U.S. District Judge Thomas D. Schroeder last Friday comes nearly four months after a federal jury awarded $4.1 million in damages to the three officers.

The officers sued Town Manager Christine Bralley and former Mocksville Police Chief Robert Cook, saying their First Amendment rights were violated when Cook fired them two weeks after they called the N.C. Attorney General’s Office and the Governor’s Office.

Cook and Bralley testified in May that they knew nothing about the call and that they fired the three for poor job performance.

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Information from: Winston-Salem Journal, http://www.journalnow.com